Locally Grown: Earlier, sweeter apples

Oct. 13, 2012

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News Journal

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"Locally Grown" is a weekly series meant to introduce readers to farmers who market fruit, vegetables, honey, maple syrup and other products directly to consumers in north central Ohio. The series runs on Saturdays through the harvest season.

They come in out of the chill air to buy crisp apples, cider made using a press at the back of the shop, locally produced honey and maple syrup and squash and vegetables grown regionally and purchased at Owl Creek Auction near Fredericktown.

Many of Apple Hill's customers stop in with the goal of not leaving without an apple donut, made using applesauce from fruit grown at the orchard and iced with an apple glaze.

Customers pick about one-quarter of the apples sold at Apple Hill. The rest are in bins in the shop.

Russell and Barbara Joudrey have run Apple Hill Orchards for 23 years.

The couple bought the business -- formerly owned by the Hartzler family -- in 1989. The farm included 62 acres of north of Clear Fork Reservoir, where the shop is located, along with 122 acres in Fredericktown, where apples are grown and the harvest is washed, graded and packed.

Barbara Zaugg Joudrey, who grew up in Mansfield, met and married Russell Joudrey in Rhode Island.

For a time, the Joudreys ran what they'd call a small 20-acre hobby farm, not to make a living.

They learned the Hartzler farm was up for sale, and made the move.

"We knew we weren't interested in corn or soybean farming -- grain farming, we had just no background in that at all," Russell Joudrey said.

Apple Hill Orchards sits at the highest elevation of any orchard in Ohio.

That was a blessing this year, when a Bermuda high pressure system brought unseasonably warm weather to the Midwest in early 2012 -- allowing apple blooms to appear -- then followed with widespread frosts across the Great Lakes region.

In some areas, including Michigan, "it was a disaster" for orchards, Russell Joudray said. "Many people lost their whole crop," he said.

Apple Hill fared better. Along with being at high elevation, it has a good cold air drainage, helping move frigid air away from where apple trees were planted.

The orchard lost only 40 percent of its fruit, Joudrey said.

The weird spring and cold snap weren't the end of the unusual weather. When summer came, it brought several weeks with little to no rain. But the surviving apples turned out sweeter than usual, Russell Joudrey said. "Maybe a little dryness doesn't hurt, to help the sugar content in fruit," he said.

2012 brought apple varieties in a couple of weeks earlier than normal.

Apple picking season usually starts in mid-June with Lodi, Transparent and Pristine apples. It wraps up around Nov. 10 with Pink Lady apples.

But this year, "probably everything will be picked by October," Barbara Joudrey said.

Tastes have gradually changed over time, Russell Joudrey said. Honeycrisp and Pink Lady are two very popular varieties now.

On the other hand, Jonathan, traditionally a "great Midwestern apple," has lost ground. "I don't think people bake and cook as much today as their grandmothers did," he said.

The Joudreys are members of the Midwest Apple Improvement Association, a growers' group dedicated to producing varieties with later bloom dates and other qualities needed in this climate.

About four years ago, the owners of Apple Hill Orchards began to rely heavily on 'pheromone lures' to attract insects found in the orchards, disrupting their mating activities to keep numbers low.

Most customers don't ask whether the apples are sprayed, or how often. But the orchard's owners prefer to spray as little as possible. "We are concerned about it," Barbara Joudrey said.

"We used to spray by the calendar. Now (with pheromone lures), you only have to treat for the problem you actually have," Russell Joudrey said.

Very large orchards build cold-storage facilities on location, to keep apples for sale year-round.

The Joudreys, as owners of a smaller operation, ship their apples to Green Star Cooperative in Salem. It's more than 100 miles away, but they say the trip is worthwhile to make sure fruit grown in their orchard is stored in optimum, low-oxygen conditions to keep it fresh.